I want to know what your FORMERLY is, not least of all because perhaps it’ll be as superficial and relatively unimportant in the scheme of things as is mine.

Obviously the fact that you’ve always been the smartest kid in your family and yet couldn’t bring yourself to finish your dissertation is nothing compared to the problems of veterans returning minus a limb, but it’s still worth a rant. Or that your high school peers voted you most likely to get rich quick and you’re working at Dunkin’ Donuts. Or that you had the marriage and little blond children that seemed so perfect, and now you have an ex and bigger blond children that you see every other weekend.

Boo-effin’-hoo, some will say. You’re not homeless. You’re not trapped in some abandoned bomb shelter with nothing but a skeleton and some plant water to drink like that girl on All My Children. Get some real problems. And you will, at some point. But for now, I want to hear about your FORMERLY.

Go to the drop-down menu, and select a FORMERLY from among the ones I posted. If none apply, write your own in the box to the right. And then give me a few words (no more than 200) on your FORMERLY, what it meant to you and how you’re dealing. You can also post a relevant picture (it needn’t be you but something that says it all). Keep it relatively clean, kids, and feel free to post more than one. You can be serious, self-mocking, however you feel. Feel free to post under a fake name. Thanks!